To celebrate the new set looking so awesome, I designed 5 mechanics for the students of Strixhaven.
Snapback Curse3BB
Instant
Destroy target creature.
If you riposte, gain 4 life (you riposte if a permanent you control is being targeted.)
Fireball Installation2R
Instant
Fireball Installation deals 3 damage to any target.
Display 3RR (If you cast this for 3RR, create an Art artifact token and exile this card attached to it. When it leaves the battlefield, you may cast this card without paying its mana cost.)
Eager Dissector3B
Creature - Vampire Wizard T, Dissect a creature card: Gain 3 life. (To dissect a card, sacrifice it, discard it, or exile it from your graveyard. Draw a card if you sacrifice this way.)
2/2
Digger Assistant2W
Creature - Human Wizard
Whenever Digger Assistant attacks, excavate. (To excavate, exile the top card of your library, then you may put a card you've excavated into your hand. If it's an artifact, land, or spirit, discard a card. If it's not, discard two cards.)
2/1
Calculous Mauler3G
Creature - Bear Wizard
Trample is genetic for you. 1G, T: Integrate target creature (put a genetic or +1/+1 counter on it.) Activate this ability only as a sorcery.
2/2
Riposte is flavorful, but super narrow. Not sure how often you could get the bonus or even how much design space there is, considering it can only go on instant-speed cards.
Display is sorta neat, but I feel like the display cost should be less, not more, unless the spell actually resolves AND gets displayed. Even then, it feels a lot like Foretell.
Dissect is cool. I like the open-endedness of it. No idea how it would actually play, but I'd give it a test drive for sure.
Excavate read really nicely until the last two sentences. If you chop those, I feel like you have a really clean card engine mechanic going. I like the idea of effects that excavate multiple cards at a time because you can still only actually draw one per. Seems like too much card flow for RW though. And when I think about excavation, I imagine graveyard interaction instead of library. But w/e. Still neat.
I'm guessing anything that has a genetic counter also has all of your genetic abilities. That's a neat idea, but it could be reworded to be a little less reliant on intuition alone:
"Creatures you control with gene counters have trample.
1G, T: Put a gene counter or +1/+1 counter on target creature."
I feel repose is on your wrong color here. Blue and white are the colors that typically care about this. Though I could see it in blue and something else to make better use of flash.
Display is neat but it requires a specific meta to prove useful. I'm not sure you could fit the needed amount of artifact sacrificing effects to go alongside many other mechanics and their support.
It feels wrong that I can dissect the same creature multiple times. Its also wierd that there is a different name for when you do this to something alive and that it is acknowledged that disceting a living creature and a non living creature are different.
Genetic is interesting but reads bad. It feels like the natural evolution of the splicers from New phyrexia. While it would play and read better if you just looked for any counters thats been done before multiple times. I think a verb would work better. So its written Verb Bonus(Splice First Strike) put a verb counter(put a splice counter) splice has been used before but I think it shows that a verb reads better.
Snapback Curse 3BB
Instant
Destroy target creature.
If you riposte, gain 4 life (you riposte if a permanent you control is being targeted.)
Fireball Installation 2R
Instant
Fireball Installation deals 3 damage to any target.
Display 3RR (If you cast this for 3RR, create an Art artifact token and exile this card attached to it. When it leaves the battlefield, you may cast this card without paying its mana cost.)
Eager Dissector 3B
Creature - Vampire Wizard
T, Dissect a creature card: Gain 3 life. (To dissect a card, sacrifice it, discard it, or exile it from your graveyard. Draw a card if you sacrifice this way.)
2/2
Digger Assistant 2W
Creature - Human Wizard
Whenever Digger Assistant attacks, excavate. (To excavate, exile the top card of your library, then you may put a card you've excavated into your hand. If it's an artifact, land, or spirit, discard a card. If it's not, discard two cards.)
2/1
Calculous Mauler 3G
Creature - Bear Wizard
Trample is genetic for you.
1G, T: Integrate target creature (put a genetic or +1/+1 counter on it.) Activate this ability only as a sorcery.
2/2
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/other-magic-products/mtg-mmo/820175-the-ashblood-ascendants
GENERATION 21: The first time you see this, copy and paste it into your signature and add 1 to the generation number. It's a social experiment.
Display is sorta neat, but I feel like the display cost should be less, not more, unless the spell actually resolves AND gets displayed. Even then, it feels a lot like Foretell.
Dissect is cool. I like the open-endedness of it. No idea how it would actually play, but I'd give it a test drive for sure.
Excavate read really nicely until the last two sentences. If you chop those, I feel like you have a really clean card engine mechanic going. I like the idea of effects that excavate multiple cards at a time because you can still only actually draw one per. Seems like too much card flow for RW though. And when I think about excavation, I imagine graveyard interaction instead of library. But w/e. Still neat.
I'm guessing anything that has a genetic counter also has all of your genetic abilities. That's a neat idea, but it could be reworded to be a little less reliant on intuition alone:
"Creatures you control with gene counters have trample.
1G, T: Put a gene counter or +1/+1 counter on target creature."
Display is neat but it requires a specific meta to prove useful. I'm not sure you could fit the needed amount of artifact sacrificing effects to go alongside many other mechanics and their support.
It feels wrong that I can dissect the same creature multiple times. Its also wierd that there is a different name for when you do this to something alive and that it is acknowledged that disceting a living creature and a non living creature are different.
Genetic is interesting but reads bad. It feels like the natural evolution of the splicers from New phyrexia. While it would play and read better if you just looked for any counters thats been done before multiple times. I think a verb would work better. So its written Verb Bonus(Splice First Strike) put a verb counter(put a splice counter) splice has been used before but I think it shows that a verb reads better.
Riposte is too narrow.
Genetic is a biology thing and not a math thing. Quandrix is all about math.
Dunes of Zairo
SHANDALAR
Innistrad - The Darkest Night
~THE RAVNICAN CONSORTIUM~
A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries